Fire Capt. McCullough releases first novel

DOVER- The luck o’ the Irish was shining on one local firefighter on Nov. 10 as he took time to sign copies of his memoir, Danny Boy, a story of his younger years living in northern Texas.

Greeting patrons as they walked in, Kristin McCullough, wife of author Don, was proud of her husband of five years as he enjoyed the greetings of readers and friends in the cozy setting of the Irish pub.

“Kelley’s Row seemed to be a good fit for it,” she said.

“It’s all new to us. It’s new and it’s exciting,” she said. “It’s been great.”

His memoir, based on his life during the late 60s in Texas, is the first book McCullough has written, but it won’t be the last.

Ginna Schonwald, of Barrington, stood in line in the upstairs dining room of Kelley’s Row to have her friend of about 20 years sign her copy of the book.

She read through an early manuscript of the memoir and said she likes it very much.

“It’s a very enjoyable read,” she said.

Frank Avelliino, of Dover, used to work with McCullough in the Dover Fire Department and said he was excited to read about what his friend was like in his formative years.

Sitting at the bar reading through the book, Leigh Alexander, of Dover, said it was a great look into McCullough’s childhood.

“He did a good job capturing some memories from when he was a kid,” he said. “It’s making me think back and remember some memories from my own childhood.”

McCullough said he had a few different working titles as the memoir started out, but it was his wife who came up with the final name of “Danny Boy” since he has a large Irish family.

“It’s been a great ride. It feels good today,” he told someone as he signed a message in the cover of their book.

McCullough said writing the book, which he did while recovering from a motorcycle accident in 2010, was “the experience of a lifetime.”

The coming-of-age memoir is a story he said has always been inside him and though he never actually intended for it to be published, it was something he had always promised himself he would write.

In the time he was on leave from work recovering from the accident he wrote 63,000 words, showed the script to his wife and she encouraged him to get the manuscript published.

It was a two year journey of constant rewrites, he said. “I’m not a trained writer. I’m a story teller.”

Being in the fire services where a tradition of oral history telling exists, McCullough said he is surrounded by story tellers in his work.

McCullough has also written a children’s fiction book that deals with the subject of grief, he said, and is currently working on writing his next memoir.

He said he also wants to write more about a part of his life when he said he was “pretty lost.”

“It’s about being found and being happy,” he said.

Though not a trained writer, he said being in the heart of the creative space, for him, is sacred.

“That sacred space of creativity for me is just a great place to be in for a little while,” he said.